Zen Quotes | Zen Sayings

Zen mindfulness encourages you to be calm and in the moment. Zen sayings give you inspiration to do just that.

Choose your favourite and use it as inspiration for your day.

Here are our favourite Zen sayings.

Zen Quotes

"I cannot tell if what the world considers 'happiness' is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness."

~ Chuang-tzu.~

"1. Don't wish for perfect health. In perfect health, there is greed and wanting. So an ancient said, " Make good medicine from the suffering of sickness."

2. Don't hope for life without problems. An easy life results in a judgmental and lazy mind. So an ancient once said, "Accept the anxieties and difficulties of this life".

3. Don't expect your practice to be clear of obstacles. Without hindrances the mind that seeks enlightenment may be burnt out. So an ancient once said, "Attain deliverance in disturbances"

~ Kyong Ho ~

"The process of practice is to see through, not to eliminate, anything to which we are attached. We could have great financial wealth and be unattached to it, or we might have nothing and be very attached to having nothing...

Usually, if we have seen through the nature of attachment, we will have a tendency to have few possessions, but not necessarily. Most practice gets caught in this area of fiddling with our environments or our minds. "My mind should be quiet". Our mind doesn't matter; what matters is non-attachment to the activities of the mind. And our emotions are harmless unless they dominate us , that is, if we are attached to them - then they create dis-harmony for everyone.

The first problem in practice is to see that we are attached.

As we do consistent, patient zazen we begin to know that we are nothing but attachments; they rule our lives.

But we never lose an attachment by saying it has to go. Only as we gain true awareness of its true nature does it quietly and imperceptibly wither away; like a sandcastle with waves rolling over, it just smoothes out and finally Where is it? What was it?"